Archives for January 2014

All of us at one time or the other must have taken inspiration from words spoken by someone past or present, famous or anonymous; or found them in a work of fiction. These words move us, guide us, inspire us to be better and do better. Some words make sense only to us in a sense that we wonder if others will ever grasp their meaning like we did. They may be direct or they may have multiple meanings only be discerned when read multiple times, some may be long, some only a few words. Whatever they may be, however they might be, these words have shaped us, have become a part of our psyche. I’ve collected few such quotes/lines below which’ve had a great influence on me with a little commentary of my own.

An old lady asks when her pension will be released. The officer asks her ten thousand rupees bribe. The poor lady does not have that amount. She goes back crying. He sees all this. That evening when all are leaving, he walks up to the officer, takes out a knife and stabs him multiple times killing him and leaves a message on his body that he’ll kill everyone and anyone who asks for a bribe. The audience rejoices. They come out of the cinema hall wondering if only someone stood up for them in real life society would be different. The movie is a hit. Indian, Aparichit, Tagore, Nayak, and similar movies just reinforce this idea. And, we pine for a ‘larger-than-life’ hero to change our life. And, when we see any semblance of this in any person, we pitch our hopes on them, mostly to be disappointed. Can one person really bring change? Or is it just to be only enjoyed in movies? But, didn’t Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Lincoln bring change? Were they not just one person?

Finding the ground was not tough even though the city was new to me. I got down the auto and walked under the evening sun towards the ticket counter. “Entry Free” said the usher. “That was different”, I thought. With hands in my pockets and a ‘good-to-be-back-home’ smile on my face, I entered the book exhibition. Year after year I’ve been visiting book fairs in Hyderabad, but, over the last two years, I’ve been visiting the same in Vijayawada. Home to me is where books are, no matter the city, so walking into one in a different city was no different. I walked in alone (’cause even my best friends who tend to come with me once don’t dare to come the next time, citing I hardly speak and simply don’t move quickly) and firmly planted my legs in front of one book stall, opened a book and quietly drifted to a different world.

I saw this Hindi movie the other day, “Oh! My God”. Not, to give away the plot but it’s about an atheist who loses his shop to an earthquake and his claim is rejected by the insurance company as the incident is an ‘act of god’. So, he decides to sue ‘God’ for his loss. He summons all religious institutions to the court saying they represent God in this world. What happens next is to be seen in the movie. Some lines I loved from the movie:

When God rescues Kanji (the protagonist played wonderfully by Paresh Rawal) from goons and gives him lift on his bike, Kanji asks him to drop him at his house, but, God stops nearby to his house and tells him, “My work is to show you the way, reaching the destination is your work”.

When Kanji asks him, why he can’t stop crime, he replies, “I could’ve finished the Kurukshetra war in a second. But, it was not my war. Similarly, this is your war, go fight”.

God disappears in the end, leaving behind only a key-chain which he used. Kanji is about to put it in his pocket when he hears God’s voice from the sky, “What are you doing, Kanji? Don’t save the key-chain as a souvenir and wear it like a talisman. I’m everywhere. Even in you. You don’t need things & talismans to feel close to me”.

These days on the Internet I see this ‘three words’ trend (started by Chris Brogan), a concept where we’d chose three words and make them the focus of our goals for the year. These three words identify the ‘direction’ you want to take in life – what you want to do and what you like to focus on this year. They act as triggers to remind us of, to move us to action. If losing 3 kg of weight is your goal for this year, the number “3” can be one of your words. Also, these ‘three words’ act as an effective alternative to the the traditional new year goal/project/resolutions concept. We can use it as a general direction to align our life to instead of describing specific outcomes.